By Denise A. Valdez, Reporter

INTERNATIONAL consultancy firm Deloitte is bullish on growth in the Asia Pacific through a newly opened delivery center in the Philippines.

Deloitte Consulting Philippines Delivery Center (PDC), Inc. launched Thursday a global delivery center in Bonifacio Global City, which will serve clients operating in Asia Pacific.

“There are some very ambitious growth plans for Asia Pacific within Deloitte Consulting and in order to cater to those plans, we need a very strong delivery arm within this time zone. Having that center in the Philippines is going to help us be closer to the Asia Pacific time zones,” Deloitte Consulting PDC Managing Director Uday Sreeram said during a media briefing at the company’s new office yesterday.

“Based on our research and our due diligence, we found that there is an amazing talent pool here in the Philippines. Good English-speaking skills and very passionate and enthusiastic young work force who want to make a mark,” he added.

Deloitte is a $43-billion firm that is mainly in the business of providing auditing, consulting, financial advisory and tax services to its clients, majority of which are Fortune 500 companies.

The company noted the global delivery center in Manila is its first in Asia Pacific and will have a focus on technology consulting services “with a focus on Digital, ServiceNow, Robotic Process Automation, SAP, and Workday.”

It is committed to grow the office size from its current 150 employees to around 300 by next year and around 1,000 in the next five years.

“We’re making a substantial financial investment and commitment over multiple years to stand up this center. Those investments are ongoing,” Delotte Consulting LLP Principal Jeff Jordan said.

“We’ve committed to around 700 (employees) over a few years, but… given the market and where we’re going, we’ll see several thousand people between now and 2024… The investment is directly proportional to the volume of people,” he added.

Deloitte currently has 26 delivery centers worldwide with more than 31,000 practitioners across the network. In the coming years, Mr. Jordan said the goal is to make the delivery center in the Philippines one of the company’s biggest all over the world.

“We have varying sizes, but when we accelerate or fast forward two years, this will be one of the top five (delivery centers) that we would have in terms of size and scale. And if we are really successful, it would easily be at the top 2 or 3,” he said.

Mr. Jordan noted the new global delivery center in the Philippines is part of Deloitte’s series of strategic investments to reach out to its growing client base across the world.

Prior to opening in the Philippines, Deloitte also set up regional delivery centers in China and Kuala Lumpur. The company has 26 global, regional and local delivery centers around the world.